So, our military kills civilians...

So, this is horrid shit news for today but its just like another episode of a sitcom. People will forget after a day or two. It's not like people (who don't hide their head in the sand) didn't know this goes on with our military. This incident is only out there and known because it was leaked. If you don't know by now, here are sources on this story. Basically, Wikileaks.org released a bombshell of a video depicting US troops opening fire into a crowd of civilians who have no weapons. The "weapons" are the oh so lethal video camera and tripod of journalists on the ground. There was no firefight that the military claimed after their "investigation." The military would not release the video to Reuters who the 2 journalists belonged to. And further, the soldiers shot at a van of people trying to help a wounded man and they shot 30mm rounds into 2 children. Yay USA! If you watch the attitude, especially the end, it reveals a callousness as the soldiers show no remorse. They even laugh and hope that the wounded civilians try to shoot them with the nonexistent gun. And command sanctions this all the way.

Our culture has truly become perverse. We are desensitized to the horrors of war thanks to our gov't, "news" media, and entertainment media. This includes video games. The soldiers really sound like what you would hear playing COD4/5/6/any FPS on XBox Live/PSN. But, isn't this what is needed in to maintain a highly militarized society? One that supports invasions, occupations, covert interventions, death squads/terrorists (El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc), drone bombings, fomenting civil wars in Africa and elsewhere, is the #1 arms supplier to the world, and I could go on and on.

Well, rant over. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts for and against mine or whatever is on your mind. Although, the machine has conditioned us to steer clear of important issues that concern our society and go... play video games?

From the Democracy Now interview, I thought this really sums up this incident and our military apparatus in general:

"These are not bad apples. This is standard practice. You can hear it from the tones of the voices of the pilots that this is in fact another day at the office. These pilots have evidently and gunners have evidently become so corrupted, morally corrupted, by the war that they are looking for excuses to kill. That is why you hear this segment, “Come on, buddy! Just pick up a weapon,” when Saeed, one of the Reuters employees, is crawling on the curb. They don’t want him for intelligence value to understand the situation. The man is clearly of no threat whatsoever. He’s prostate on the ground. Everyone else has been killed. They just want an excuse to kill. And it’s some kind of—appears to me to be some kind of video game mentality where they just want to get a high score, get their kill count up. And later on you’ll hear them proudly proclaiming how they killed twelve to fifteen people."

So, this is horrid shit news for today but its just like another episode of a sitcom. People will forget after a day or two. It's not like people (who don't hide their head in the sand) didn't know this goes on with our military. This incident is only out there and known because it was leaked. If you don't know by now, here are sources on this story. Basically, Wikileaks.org released a bombshell of a video depicting US troops opening fire into a crowd of civilians who have no weapons. The "weapons" are the oh so lethal video camera and tripod of journalists on the ground. There was no firefight that the military claimed after their "investigation." The military would not release the video to Reuters who the 2 journalists belonged to. And further, the soldiers shot at a van of people trying to help a wounded man and they shot 30mm rounds into 2 children. Yay USA! If you watch the attitude, especially the end, it reveals a callousness as the soldiers show no remorse. They even laugh and hope that the wounded civilians try to shoot them with the nonexistent gun. And command sanctions this all the way.

Our culture has truly become perverse. We are desensitized to the horrors of war thanks to our gov't, "news" media, and entertainment media. This includes video games. The soldiers really sound like what you would hear playing COD4/5/6/any FPS on XBox Live/PSN. But, isn't this what is needed in to maintain a highly militarized society? One that supports invasions, occupations, covert interventions, death squads/terrorists (El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc), drone bombings, fomenting civil wars in Africa and elsewhere, is the #1 arms supplier to the world, and I could go on and on.

Well, rant over. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts for and against mine or whatever is on your mind. Although, the machine has conditioned us to steer clear of important issues that concern our society and go... play video games?

From the Democracy Now interview, I thought this really sums up this incident and our military apparatus in general:

"These are not bad apples. This is standard practice. You can hear it from the tones of the voices of the pilots that this is in fact another day at the office. These pilots have evidently and gunners have evidently become so corrupted, morally corrupted, by the war that they are looking for excuses to kill. That is why you hear this segment, “Come on, buddy! Just pick up a weapon,” when Saeed, one of the Reuters employees, is crawling on the curb. They don’t want him for intelligence value to understand the situation. The man is clearly of no threat whatsoever. He’s prostate on the ground. Everyone else has been killed. They just want an excuse to kill. And it’s some kind of—appears to me to be some kind of video game mentality where they just want to get a high score, get their kill count up. And later on you’ll hear them proudly proclaiming how they killed twelve to fifteen people."

LOL what you figuring this out now? Are you for real? Boy, you need to go back and re-read your history books all wars in this country and others have killed civilians. World War 1 and 2, Korean War, Civil War, War of 1812 it goes on and on. The point is not that civilians are killed but that in war that is what happens.

Apparently you forgot about the beheading of US citizens in the Middle East and those were streamed live on the net.

Its easy to sit behind a computer and blurt out that US is the monster but what do you know? Have you ever served in the military and fought? On the battlefield the rules are different great if you dont want to kill the enemy but you think the enemy is going to have any remorse to you? Hell no they going to kill you in seconds.

You should also take a hard look at our soldiers, funny how they are old enough to fire a gun yet still not old enough to buy beer.

Oh, dont get me wrong I am not a support of this "war" just for the simple fact that there doesn't seem to be a point right now. I am more against the politics of this war its easy for government officials to send our boys to fight for something not worth fighting for. But how many of these officials in our own country have children of there own on the front line?

Don't make our troops the bad guys cause in reality you yourself are going by what another media outlet is feeding you and that in itself is no different than mainstream media.

on this video @ 3:40-3:47 one of the people is carrying what looks to be an rpg. and the person behind him looks like he has a ak-47. if it is i dont know how 'inocent' these 'civilians' are. i am not defending this, i am just saying that looks alot like a rpg. watch when the guy spins with it and you can see it plus its shadow on the ground. it looked to me like they were springing a trap for our boys to roll into and the reporters were trying to get pictures, i noticed the one guy crouching peeking around the corner as if he was waiting for it (with his camera) and while yes it sucks, this is a part of war. i dont condone their attitude but if you were in their position maybe you wouldnt be in the perfect mind frame either.

Shimra,Do you know how to watch a video? I, as anyone, can watch and see the depravity of the soldiers in this video. You think laughing and joking and deliciously fiending an opportunity to kill people is behavour that I or any person cannot pass judgement on? There behaviour and thoughts are there, immortalized on film. Yes, go on and justify the killing of civilians because this is war that we are waging ON them. And FYI, war occurs with 2 or more standing armies. This is actually counterinsurgency. I don't expect you to comprehend that. And counterinsurgency against in a place we were uninvited in (that is why its illegal).

You (and the other guy) did a good job demonstrating my point. In our society there are people like you who believe that Americans can go run roughshod wherever they want and murder who they want. Its "collateral damage."

Think through your arguments a little better and refrain from pulling them from the pre-existing templates out there. (ex. you didn't serve, so it invalidates your opinion. Maybe then no soldiers opinion can count if they have never been occupied. Have you been occupied?) And try not to prove my point unless that is what you intend.

And for history, here is something you should learn about to show you what monsters do. And he only covers 50+ interventions in his books!!Killing Hope: US Interventions in the Third World since World WarIIhttp://www.thirdworl...lliam_Blum.html

@crzyjoeguy
Watch the democracy now interview. They analyzed this video for months before releasing it. It was a camera tripod and a camera. They were Reuters reporters. The US military lied about a firefight, etc. I covered all this in my initial post. Yeeeesh!

1st - we arent in the army (hope we never will be), so we do not live in fear that theres a IED next to my car, or a kid, woman or whoever is talking to me, is planning to kill me, we dont live on the edge like the the US soldiers do

2nd - "war, war never changes", war is ugly, war is heartless, its my life or yours, if u second guess urself, u or ur buddy can die,

3rd - how many times has scenerio happened, with a reverse outcome??? meaning that van was filled with insurgents, and killed US troops???

So its ok to crash plans into our buildings and blow up embassys around the world? They are killing their own civilians everyday, get mad at that, not at the US military. Sometimes shit like this happens, get over it. You want to get mad someone, get mad at them.

For a sad but good laugh, check out this CNN vs Al Jazeera post. It explains a lot of why some folks here posting think they have all the answers when they have little information and quaint generalizations that are boilerplate at best. They are feed a crap diet of news(infotainment) and history(no history) courtesy of their media.http://www.i-am-bore...m?link_id=48547

@fatmanforlife99
Now, now, with the racial generalizations. Do you still believe that Iraq was responsible for 911?!?!? I did not believe that there were still some of you out there. Not that you would be versed in this area at all (you should be since you are commenting on it and it is relevant), the occupying force is responsible for all acts of violence, instability, etc under intl law. Intl law is that thing that the USA cites when it wants to and disregards when it applies to them.

@aleraiders
1 & 2: weak generalizations that serve to obfuscate any further exploration of an issue. Thanks for parroting.

3: How many times has it happened? Why don't you mention it here instead of another vacuous generalization? Go research that bit of info on this here interwebs thing. Then research how many Iraqi civilians have died. Here I will tell you this. It is CONSERVATIVELY, 100,000. Measure that against the US military casualty rate. Find it online. Not even in the same ballpark.

If you do not like what the United States does then get the out. NOBODY is making you stay here. Go live with the savages for a while and I am willing to bet you will BEG to be aloowed to come back to this country that you seem to dispise so much.

Furthermore, I am willing to bet you are probably one of those pansy ass bastards that beieve the goverment set up 9-11 arent you.

@Spyder187
Nice to see someone show their racist face. "Savages"? Yes, you as an American are all so enlightened who spend most of your federal discretionary budget on war. You know with your racist attitude, YOU should probably leave this melting pot to go to an apartheid state like South Africa. Whoops! The apartheid state there is gone. Now, you are SOL. Find a time machine and go to Nazi Germany. Your obedience to the govt would fit in perfectly there! Next place I suggest for you is the bottom of the ocean with your antiquated and damaging beliefs. Before you do that, I suggest some logic courses (as the leave it love it argument is oh so third grade) and some history. Lets start with YOUR own history before we try to judge who are "savages." Also, learning to spell your own language wouldn't hurt. FYI, I have lived in other places. Sounds like you have never even left the backwoods.

I am inclined to agree with spider on this, but you are entitled to your own opinion. I know we might see this video differently, but you got to understand they are dealing with a whole nother type of fighter. These people are not willing to change, they would rather blow themselves up to justify what they are doing. The US military has to protect itself from this crap, because it is entirely different type of warfare. Its not like it was in WW 2 or WW 1 with tons of people fighting each other. It sucks this happened, it really does, but like raiders said war aint pretty and it never will be. Everybody wants peace, but these people just want to destroy it for our people and theirs.

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